I think Korea would do itself much better to do more of what Japan has done

What Japan did in Korea, Japan did for Japan. But then again, what those with money in Korea, they do for those with money. The vast majority of people here seem to me to have been screwed by a small elite for a long time, and the only difference is, when the elite is another “race” then it is worth screaming about, but when the elite is of the same race as the screwed, then that elite is to be admired and honoured and everyone wants to be like them.

One must be careful not to mistake a real care and concern for the nation (which would result in a lot more screaming and reform even today) for an excuse for even more xenophobia. I’m not saying Japan didn’t make a royal mess of Korea: they did. Of course, usainkorea’s also correct, I believe, that the culture was impacted upon such that modernization happened very quickly. That unforeseen positives can emerge from an overall negative experience isn’t even debatable, it’s just common sense. (Just as, for example, sweeping business and banking reforms could have resulted from the so-called IMF crisis, and just as a rise in new entrepreneurialism could arise as a result of the current job shortage here.) Anyone who cannot admit that

Of course, I’m in Jeonbuk, so I see things a little differently that how they might look up there in Seoul. Personally, I see only a very little difference between an exploitative corporation run by fellow natives, and an exploitative organization of military occupiers, because their effects are (potentially, though not currently) the same on the masses.

I do wonder, of course, what someone like Noolji would say in the face of an old-timer who had nothing particularly bad to say about his personal experience during the Japanese occupation.

Proud Korean: on the idea of “trading in” those benefits, I hasten to add I also know of a number of Koreans who think Reunification Now would result in the sudden wealth and empowerment of the nation. Which could only happen by magic, of course, but I have met plenty of people who earnestly believe that, and spout the rhetoric. The unbelievable is sometimes all too believable, when national pride enters the picture, and I think that plenty (though of course not all) of those who would agree to the tradeoff wouldn’t necessarily think through it all that carefully first. (Were it even possible.) Just as, say, the Irish would go back in time and make sure the English had never colonized them, without considering whether they’d have been colonized by someone else anyway, or considering what they would lose in the process.

Which reminds me of something interesting: other than some uncomfortable social situations, and the clever montage at the beginning of the film, 2009: Lost Memories presents a science-fictional view of Korea in the year 2009 under the rule of Japan. And you know, it’s not anywhere as bad as I expected it to look: it’s not rinding misery and poverty, it’s not Koreans as slaves and Japanese as lords. It’s plainly modern, and while the Japanese are clearly running the show, Koreans look not so badly off. I was stunned not to hear a wave of criticism about that, at least among people I knew, but then again the film didn’t do all that well. And maybe it was criticized in Korean, and I missed it. *shrug*

Everyone I talk to (well a good percentage) say their grandfather or great grandfather was a freedom fighter. This again shows how much their pride was hurt and how much some Koreans overcompensate for it. Obviously it is not true for if it was 80% of the men would have been freedom fighters and could have easily kicked out the 5000-8000 Japanese troops in Korea. Koreans need to come to terms with their history (Yes I realize Japan needs to as well). The fact is the great majority of Koreans lived their life the best they could as secondary citizens. Again the more Korea learns about its history the faster they can get over their bruised pride and stop overcompensating for it. Also, most Koreans seem to have no idea that 8/15 is also Victory over Japan day for the allies. Talking to most Koreans they seem to think they magically got their independence on 8/15 or that somehow Korea finally fought Japan back.

Noolji you say that “japan did not modernize korea; the west did via japan.” Well then wouldn’t it be true that Korea did not enculturate the Japanese, China did via Korea? I don’t know where you get Japan does not excavate any tombs from 0-500 your information is incorrect.

I’m not sure that is the primary argument being made. I know it is NOT what I’m saying. I never wrote the Koreans should be “thankful” for being colonized.

I am saying people over-simplify the colonial period making everything a black and white issue. Too many people refuse to consider benefits that came from colonization at all. And like in the quote below, they actually damage the Korean victim point of view by stretching beyond the bounds of belieability —- making them look too extreme and thus easibly dismissed:

“Japanese rule was just as harsh as German Nazi if not worse.”

This is bullshit. And it is one of the primary reasons I even get involved in the pretty much pointless discussions of “what ifs” concerning Korean development under the Japanese.

To keep stretching the Holocaust to fit every grievance another nation has against a third damages a very necessary understanding of what happened to the Jews (and we should note tens of thousands of other “undesirables”) in WWII.

Someone else wrote in the comments that if the author thinks Japanese rule wasn’t that bad, he’d like to send him back there. Well, I and others I know have talked to Korean adults who lived back then, and it isn’t hard to find those who say it wasn’t that bad. Does that mean they were pro-Japanese sympathizers and wanted to be “Japanese”? No.

Unlike the millions of Jews who were rounded up and taken to gas chambers and then had their bodies burnt in a systematic, industrial attempt to extinguish the ethnic group in Europe, the Koreans who suffered greatly under the authoritarian Japanese government were the ones who fought against it. From what I’ve heard, the regular Koreans who didn’t rock the boat (fight the Japanese authorities) led regular lives. Do they wish they had lived the lives under an independant Korean nation? Yes.

I’d like to also remind eveybody this discussion began talking about Roh making it seem like official government policy Japan should erase the previous agreement and pay Korea(ns) compensation again.

“Why cant the Japanese for once just feel sorry for their crimes, stop looking for excuses and loopholes to cover their shameful history and compensate for their wrongdoings?”

While I think Japanese society has pushed away consistent recognition of its past acts, they DID compensate Korea in a mutually agreed to legal document. It would be problematic for any regular government to toss aside such an agreement or renegociate it at this point. It could be done, but it is not the kind of thing governments do. They look at it as a bad precident to set.

“As some people above me said, literally everything Japan did in Korea was solely to benefit Japan.”

Also too simple a statement to do the reality justice. Were the Japanese acting in self-interests, sure. Did (some) Koreans benefit from the rule? also surely true. A good number of South Koreas would have you believe any benefits South Korea gained with the US-SK relationship is null and void because “America didn’t do it for ‘humanitarian’ reasons!”

“Actually, Korea was in the process of reforming, albeit slowly, when Japan subjugated them. The rulers of Korea realized that they had to modernize, unfortunately, the realized this too late to be able to grow strong enough to resist Japan and Russia.”

This is true and worth debating. I would argue there is more reason to believe, if somehow Korea were left in a vaccuum isolated from interference from others, the conservative forces for the status quo would have kept the status quo alive. The landed aristocratic forces in Korea were stronger in influence in calling for avoiding revolutionary changes in the socity than the reform group. I think even the Korean King’s support would not have been enough to make reforms work. In fact, the Korean king was weaker in relation to the aristocracy than was the case in Japan and China. Historians in and out of Korea have used this to explain why Korea was stagnated in the 19th Century despite pressure to change. (Confucianism was the driving force in Korean society even at times seen as more so than in China itself. And a strong element of this Confucianism was a loathing of business as exploitation).

Someone above wrote that if we look at how Koreans work hard and thrive in other nations, we should know they would have industrialized if left alone.

Well, that isn’t what the history seems to show. The Koreans wanting to reform along Western industrial lines like Japan had done in the 19th Century were in the minority and even though some in that minority were at the top of the society and government, it seems to me they were facing uphill obstacles within Korea itself.

In short, I don’t think you make a definative argument that Korean society would have become another powerful Asian industrial nations along the Meiji Japan line.

Does this mean Koreans should “thank” Japan for colonization? No. That isn’t my point and does not have to be where any discussion of advancements made in Korea during the colonial rule leads to.

the japanese were in no way, shape or form equal to or worse than the nazis in their respective repressions over koreans and jews. the nazis set out to physically exterminate european jewery, enslave the slavic people and occupy eastern europe in their quest for living space for the germanic people. the japanese did occupy korea, but koreans were made part of the japanese empire, 2nd class to be sure, and the effort to japan-ize the population of the peninsula reflect that. hitler and the ss certainly did not do that to the jews. german jews were stripped of their citizenship, banned from using anything that smacked of germanic culture and then deported to poland for “resettlement”. if you want to find a more accurate comparison between subject peoples of the axis powers i suggest you look at the russians/poles under the germans and the chinese under the japanese. but please, don’t try to compare the koreans to the jews, its not only insulting to the suffering of the jews, its laughably incorrect.

has much changed?

I apologize if my language was a bit crude.